On Duty

Having A Cop In School Has Fans And Foes

Last year Cassandra Parkman would have said having a police officer stationed in Manchester High School was a bad idea. Last week, she asked Off. Marty Jordan for help.

Parkman said she was being harassed by someone and it looked like it was going to lead to a fight. Jordan told her he would watch for the boy and tell him to back off. Last year, the young people fought. This year, Jordan is getting involved.

Parkman believes that Jordan gets more respect than most of the school's administrators.

Students ``listen to the uniform a lot more than a suit,'' Parkman said.

Jordan started his job at MHS as the school resource officer in January. Then, opponents argued that stationing an officer in the school would send a negative message. Administrators love Jordan. Students' reaction is mixed. Statistics don't tell the whole story.

Some students are happy to have a badge in the building. Some, whose activities may be hampered by a cop, would rather he be a block away at police headquarters. Others think he's simply an administrator who just happens to pack a Smith & Wesson .45-caliber handgun.

Take KrystleConroy. Conroy is about 5 feet 7 inches of attitude.

``It ain't like he's gonna stop me if I do anything wrong,'' Conroy, a freshman, said. ``He's just a school cop. He's not a street cop.''

Jordan has been a Manchester police officer for 17 years; he maintains that authority at the high school.

Cindia Rivera, a sophomore, says Jordan doesn't help matters at the high school. ``He acts like an administrator,'' she said. Rivera said Jordan tries to work within the system; using school discipline before resorting to legal action.

But Tara Mumford, a senior, said Jordan lets the teachers and administrators do their jobs.

``Some things go beyond what a teacher can handle. These teachers don't have experience in negotiating and breaking up a fight,'' Mumford said. ``There's not enough of them to handle all the situations that go on in a [large] high school. You're lucky if you can get the school quieted down enough to teach it.''

Rivera voiced a concern that was raised when Principal James Spafford first suggested stationing an officer in the school in the fall of 1996.

``I don't think they trust us as much as they could. It makes us feel more like criminals,'' she said.

At the time the school board was considering the officer, board member Jonathan Mercier said he feared that the move might send the wrong message.

``It was one of those things in my mind that was a reasonably close call,'' Mercier said. ``The strongest con was the image or message implicitly being sent to the community about the high school. Having an officer stationed in the high school suggests to the community that maybe the problems are more than what the community thought.''

He ultimately decided to trust the judgment of School Superintendent Eddie Davis who supported the program and he voted with the rest of the board in support of a school resource officer.

Mercier said he has not kept up on how the program is doing, but he expects a report within the next few months.

Sgt. Joseph San Antonio said worries about appearances were easy to quell.

``A year ago a girl was at a basketball event and she got face slashed. She was an out-of- area student but it happened on campus. Which is better for newspapers -- putting a cop in the school to prevent things, to be proactive, or worrying about public reaction after someone gets hurt over there,'' San Antonio asked.

Statistics are not helpful because much of Jordan's job is preventative, said San Antonio, Jordan's boss. Jordan will need to be on the job a year or two before comparative statistics can be compiled. In the meantime, San Antonio said he will rely on anecdotal information to re-sell the position to the board of education and the police department. The department must decide in January whether to continue financing Jordan's position.

One of the stories San Antonio might use when he asks for money began when a 15- year-old girl stopped Jordan in the hallway and said she needed to speak to him. The girl had heard Jordan speak at a Career Night and believed she could trust him.

The girl came to Jordan's office and told him she had had sex with her music teacher.

Jordan did the preliminary investigation that led to the arrest of Jeffrey Lumpkin, a music teacher, on charges that he repeatedly sexually assaulted the girl. Lumpkin has not yet gone to trial, but police say he confessed.

``From the law enforcement end, the guys on this end love him. He's a great source of information when there's a problem developing at the school,'' San Antonio said. ``He's taken a great burden off the regular patrol officers who would normally have to handle these calls. A lot of this stuff Marty's able to resolve without making an arrest.''